Of course we heard of the rumors and specs saying that JoWooD cancelled any patch-support for Gothic 3. We want to clarify unmistakably that from JoWooD&#39;s point of view these are only rumors and we neither thought about "Cancelling patch-support" nor "Abandonment of any future plans about upcoming patch(es)" nor will we accept such ideas without any consequences.
We ask you to understand that while two companies are into negotiations both of them can&#39;t and are not allowed to talk about the progress, but this should of course not concern the patch.

It&#39;s even quite the contrary ! We&#39;re doing our best to deliver high-quality patches in future again which are for free of course !

Your JoWooD-Team

Please note that the second quote is no official statement by JoWood, it&acute;s only an official translation by their community management team to keep their international customers in the loop. Naturally the original German piece is slightly more advanced in the art of saying nothing and implying everything. An accurate, lossless translation would have been a complicated task. Glockenbeat&acute;s post is close enough, we&acute;ll leave it to our German readers to sort out the subtle differences in the comments. More information.

I dunno. JoWood's language sounds a bit ominous to me. Bascially "we aren't cancelling it and we'll threaten PB with something if they cancel it, but at the end of the day, PB is the one with the code, not JoWood." Without knowing the contract and negotiation details, just about anything could happen. Bottom line, JoWood can not patch the game without PB.

This statement doesn't give the feeling as if JoWood really knows anything about the patch. Seems only like a statement in defence, to escape the public anger. No substancial information if the patch is still in developement or how they plan to release it (via download / via addon?).

One thing that clarifies in my mind is the statement "It's even quite the contrary ! We're doing our best to deliver high-quality patches in future again which are for free of course !" Everyone can nit-pic what the meaning of life is but overall Jowood flat out said they are going to release it and it will be free. Ok now I'm back to Dungeon Keeper 2 until the patch is released

Originally Posted by Avantenor
This statement doesn't give the feeling as if JoWood really knows anything about the patch. Seems only like a statement in defence, to escape the public anger. No substancial information if the patch is still in developement or how they plan to release it (via download / via addon?).

Oh come on now. Stop this endless looking for something to blame them for. They said that the patch will come as far as JoWooD is concerned, which puts it all on Piranha Bytes. Who pays for the work hours might be and probably is under negotiation and cannot be discussed, but Piranha Bytes themselves have already stated that they will release the patch. Furthermore, they state that the patch will be free. So that means NOT PART OF AN ADDON. The only thing they couldn't mention is a release date and a fix list. That's because that information IS UNKNOWN TO HIM at this moment.

LIES!! More lies. There is no patch and there never was one. You blind, silly fanboys. They have your money, now they are giving you the big wiener in the rear. I wouldn't tolerate this if I were a paying customer.

@Thaurin: I don't think he wrote this without consultation. Considering the whole mess and JoWoods reputation I can't see any positive aspect in this statement. I don't think they would avoid to promise this patch if they only were discussion about details.

"It's even quite the contrary ! We're doing our best to deliver high-quality patches in future again which are for free of course!"

I just wonder why do I get the impression that the JoWood guy has purposefully omitted the game's name here, and might be talking about something more like an alleged general policy of the company.
Instead of reassuring me that the patch is coming, the info has instead reassured me that the patch's existence depends on current negotiations between JoWood and PB. I think JW do not see the point of financing a game released half a year ago, and would like to force PB to work on the expansion instead. We might not get any patch after all.

I´ll repost Moriendor´s and my posts from the other thread. Both are based on the sharper German statement. Here´s mine:

Thanks, Hx. I guess we´ll wait for Mo (aka the Easter Bunny ) to translate this statement. It´s quite tricky and carefully worded in the things it doesn´t say but imply.

Here´s a quick and dirty summary:
1. JoWooD wants the patch. Cancelling it wouldn´t be accepted by JoWooD "without consequences".
2. They can´t talk about ongoing negotiations, etc. …
3. … which of course shouldn´t have any connection to the G3 patch.
He later clarified in answer to a forum post (… have no connection … ) that he wrote "normally it shouldn´t have a connection".
4. JoWooD will do their best to finally make patches available again, in the highest possible quality and of course for free.

Comment:
I´m surprised Ertl said so much between the lines.
1. That´s a threat towards PB. Of course everybody "wants the patch". But who has to pay for the development? It´s all about money. Hard to say who is to blame.
2. Normal business behaviour. STFU about interna or you can collect your papers.
3. This has to be understood as the patch being a direct or indirect part of the negotiations.
4. Sounds good but is rather soft if you look carefully. Even JoWooD´s best effort can fail, and highest possible quality can still be unsufficient.

Moriendor posted this more precise translation in the other thread. He also included additional infos:

Originally Posted by Dhruin
I still see that his comment about starting the game now could be interpreted as "we keep having discussions with people who haven't even played the damn thing, so go play it and then we can talk about the issues" but I can see the context you are referring to and the fact that he is driving some sort of agenda.

Yes, exactly. He is/was driving an agenda. He's been posting almost daily before and not even once did he mention it before that people should play the game more so it's quite clear that nothing that he said was actually meant in this context. He back-pedaled and made up this "play the damn thing" context after the shit hit the fan.
Well, from reading that guy's post almost daily, I did get the impression over time that he is a -sorry- pretty whiny little critter anyway . I think everyone here who has ever worked for a bigger corporation/company will know what I mean when I say that Ralf is the guy who will pick up fragments of a phone call of higher up or some rumor from a secretary during a coffee break and then runs down the halls like a chicken with his head chopped off yelling "OMG! The end is nigh - We're all gonna get fired! OMG!".
At least, he seems to be rather good at getting involved in things that don't really concern him. And I don't think that he should be doing PR. His spelling and ability to express himself are terrible. Some of his posts are barely comprehensible.

Well, and here's (as ordered by Gorath ) a summary of today's posts of JoWood's Community Manager Ivan Ertlov…

[Edit: I didn't see that Gorath had already posted Glockenbeat's official message so please feel free to ignore my version… Glockenbeat is as official as it gets, of course )

Dear fans, players, readers…

naturally, we have taken notice of the speculations and rumors that are purporting the termination of patch support for Gothic III. We would like to clarify unmistakably that this is -as far as JoWood is concerned- pure speculation, of course, and that we neither plan any such "cancellation of support" or "abandonment of (a) further patch(es)", nor would we accept any of this without consequence. We would like to ask for your understanding that due to ongoing negotiations between the two companies, neither of the companies involved is able or allowed to comment on the developments in public but that should, of course, not affect the patch for Gothic III. Quite the contrary, we will give it all we got to finally provide you with free patches of the highest quality.

[some blahblah about his community relations job]
…However, what this is all about is to clarify that we plan to neither terminate the support nor the patching, and I will post about any new developments as soon as I have any new info.

[in response to a fan post saying: You better think of something fast before everyone here tears you a new one]

You'll be doing that anyway .

No, seriously:

It was evident for all of us that the next patch had to become all but the "messiah" among patches. According to my definition, this means the elimination of as many seriously disturbing gameplay bugs as possible.

No translation because this post was made in English to the English G3 forums so just click the link .

That was it. Let's hope that he keeps promise (for a change… last time he said he'll be back with more info next week, he was gone for 4 months ) and that he will indeed be back with hopefully more info and details later tonight. So far this is all good news. They can not possibly turn around anymore now. There must be a patch. Maybe it is even already finished as someone else here noted as well and they are just arguing over payment and distribution. Anyway, it luckily seems like the only question is "when", not "if".

[some blahblah]
…2. In the end it always boils down to these questions: "When exactly is the patch going to come out?" and "What will it fix?"

The reason I can not give you a different answer to the first question than before is that no matter who I ask, the answer will always be "as soon as possible".

The second question is somewhat easier to answer - but without a work-in-progress change list, I can not reveal any details like "pack of wolves - speed increased by 20&#37;". All I can tell you is that after a fifth patch which was planned as a very sizeable patch, there ought to no longer be such things as perks that can not be trained, the guru bug, quests that can not be solved due to bugs and so on.

But once again - I CAN not give you a release date. Today's post just served the purpose of eliminating any rumors about there being no patch at all.

[in response to a question/comment on the cancellation of support for "The Guild"]

@Solandor: I would like to take the opportunity to mention here that we did in fact offer the "The Guild 1" fans exclusive content for "compensation" prior to the release of "The Guild 2".

Anyway, what OUR (I did not write that up all by myself) statement means is that we have absolutely no plans to let the customers, the players and the fans "standing in the rain". And patching and support is part of the plan.

[in response to someone who gave good reasons why a major alteration of the story is unlikely to happen via a patch]

Yes, Pheonixx is right on pretty much all of the points he made. What some of you are desiring goes more in the direction of a "mod" rather than a "patch".

I do like the general storyline but in my private opinion, it could have been a little more "dense" or more "omnipresent". I like a guiding red thread more than total freedom, at least in a PC-RPG. When it comes to PnP it's the other way around…

Heh, I'm just glad I haven't bought the game yet. Most new RPGs are nowadays almost unplayable unpatched and so the devs get my money not until I'm sure I can enjoy it. There are "fortunately" enough voluntary beta-testers out there.

I think until the majority of the gaming consumers follow your lead we will always sit here calling out for a patch to make our brand new shinny toy worth taking out of the box and installing. I could have got my hair done twice for the cost of a game I still can't really play.

— Bart and Corwin should just admit that when it gets down to it, I will have the final say.

Originally Posted by Cm
I think until the majority of the gaming consumers follow your lead we will always sit here calling out for a patch to make our brand new shinny toy worth taking out of the box and installing. I could have got my hair done twice for the cost of a game I still can't really play.

…which is perfectly understandable. On the other hand, I definitely got enough enjoyment to justify the cost* and if it doesn't sell, they definitely won't make another one. I personally would prefer the current buggy G3 than nothing at all. I know plenty of you will disagree.

*This is a hard thing to measure. If I pay $10 (or whatever a movie ticket is these days) to go see The Usual Suspects (which I rate *very* highly), does that mean every other movie I pay the same amount to see but isn't quite as good was a rip off? Creative efforts will always vary.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
…and if it doesn't sell, they definitely won't make another one.

Maybe, but if we - the customers - buy bugged games again and again the devs will never make it a high priority to polish their games before release. And finally even don't patch them properly? *cough* I don't expect new RPGs to be bugfree, but the mess we got presented the recent years is just unbearable.

I vote with my purse and I will gladly support indie devs who make the kind of games I love like Spiderweb, Broken Hourglass of Iron Tower. The last two haven't proven anything yet, but I will buy their games no matter what. I trust them and if I got disappointed the wasted money is the last thing I'd complain about. I will buy G3 finally - budget and/or with an expansion but PB aren't indie anymore and I'm a burned child and have learned my lesson.